Philanthropist With a Sense of Timing Raises Her Profile

That is what seemed to be going through the minds of many guests at a gala dinner in early June atop the High Line, the elevated downtown railway that has been transformed into a landscaped esplanade.

The long, elegantly decorated tables were packed with luminaries of the New York social circuit, including Oscar de la Renta, Martha Stewart, Harvey Weinstein and Jerry Seinfeld.

Joshua David, a founder of Friends of the High Line, which had saved the structure from demolition and spearheaded its revival, had just announced a $10 million challenge grant to the project from the media mogul Barry Diller and his wife, the fashion designer Diane von Furstenberg, prompting a standing ovation. Suddenly, a leggy brunette in a cropped bob, flouncy Roberto Cavalli minidress and slingback, peep-toe heels by Christian Louboutin (who was in attendance) rose from her seat, approached Mr. David in the middle of his remarks, whispered in his ear and took over the microphone.

She was Lisa Maria Falcone, she said, and she and her husband, Philip A. Falcone, were so excited about the High Line and so moved by Mr. Diller and Ms. von Furstenberg’s gift that they decided to match it.

This unscripted, somewhat messy moment may go down in the annals of cultural philanthropy as the debut of a major new donor on the New York scene. Although the Falcones have given money before to the High Line and other organizations, they have usually done it less conspicuously. But little by little Ms. Falcone — along with her husband, No. 296 on the Forbes list of the world’s billionaires — is stepping into the spotlight, beginning the transition from one wealthy patron among many to the kind of highly visible player sought after by the city’s leading arts organizations.

In the last two years she has been a chairwoman of several galas at the American Museum of Natural History. Last year New York City Ballet recruited her for its board, and she was a chairwoman of the dance company’s spring gala last month.

Ms. Falcone said that she and her husband had decided to be more public about their High Line contribution to demonstrate that people don’t have to live near the elevated track — the Falcones live on the Upper East Side — to be invested in its success.

“No matter where you come from, you’re still a New Yorker, and you can give,” she said in a recent interview at her town house.

Ms. Falcone does not fit the usual image of the society arts patron. She said that she was Puerto Rican and that she was raised in Spanish Harlem by a single, alcoholic mother on welfare. Her mother died eight years ago. Growing up, she saw her father — a busboy who paid for her Catholic school — once a week. “I’ve never seen anyone clear tables like him,” Ms. Falcone said of her father, who is now 92. “He never complained about it.”

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Lisa Maria Falcone at her home on the Upper East Side.Credit
Julieta Cervantes for The New York Times

She studied art history at Pace University, earning an associate’s degree. She was in her early 20s, working as a fashion model, when she met her husband at a restaurant — they have been together for 17 years and married for 12. When they met Mr. Falcone, now 46, was a young businessman who had worked in junk bonds; in 2001 he founded Harbinger Capital, a private investment firm. Just two years ago he became a billionaire, by betting against subprime credit. His firm, which started with $25 million, now manages two funds with roughly $9 billion in assets and owns about 20 percent of The New York Times Company.

She was careful in answering questions about her husband, stopping herself from discussing his business in any detail or allowing Matthew Hiltzik, a publicist who was present throughout the interview, to stop her. She alluded to a time when she and Mr. Falcone didn’t have it so easy, saying, “When they turned the lights off on us, we lit candles.” Mr. Hiltzik advised her against saying anything further. (In a telephone interview later Mr. Falcone acknowledged that the early to mid-1990s was a difficult time for them.)

Ms. Falcone was also reluctant to reveal her age, 40, saying she wanted to be a role model for young people.

Otherwise she seemed surprisingly unguarded. She talks about the causes she cares about with the kind of wide-eyed idealism that makes you wonder how a New Yorker toughened by her share of adversity can seem so cheery. “They say people who have had a hard childhood are optimistic,” she said.

Ms. Falcone seems to have a quirky, independent streak. She collects crosses, large glittering examples of which she usually wears around her neck, and does her own hair and makeup. She pairs her couture clothing with thrift shop finds — at this interview, she wore a second-hand fur-lined sweater over a Lanvin dress.

While the couple live in the mansion that once belonged to Robert C. Guccione, founder of Penthouse magazine — which they purchased for $49 million last year — Ms. Falcone said she felt most at home in the basement apartment. “I’m still comfortable with the basic things,” she said.

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If she wears Fogal ankle socks with her Hermès high heels — as she did to Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s news conference at the opening of the High Line earlier this month — it’s because she is busy with her 4-year-old twin girls, she said, and lacks time for a pedicure.

Ms. Falcone said she grew up craving culture, but her mother refused to sign the permission slips that came home for school art trips. “She worried about me in the outside world,” she said, adding that her mother’s comfort zone was limited to the neighborhood between 116th and 125th Street; they lived at 122nd Street and Lexington Avenue.

But she managed to catch glimpses of dance on television, in between her mother’s daily soap operas. “Every now and then the ballet would come on,” she said. “I wanted to get a costume, and I wanted to get lessons. I got the costume, I didn’t get the lessons.”

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Philip and Lisa Maria Falcone at the opening ceremony for the first section of the High Line.Credit
Neil Rasmus/Patrickmcmullan.com

Ms. Falcone attended her first ballet, “The Nutcracker” at New York City Ballet, within just the last couple of years, with her children. “I was just amazed,” she said. “The props, the people, the enthusiasm.”

When City Ballet asked her to be on the board last June, Ms. Falcone said she asked: “‘Why me? Do you really want me on the board? Is it about my husband or is it me?’”

Peter Martins, City Ballet’s ballet master in chief, said Ms. Falcone had brought a breath of fresh air to the board. “She’s unlike anybody else,” he said. “She is young, generous, has lots of ideas.

”To be sure City Ballet is interested in Ms. Falcone primarily for her money, and Ms. Falcone is presumably at least partly interested in causes like City Ballet for their cachet. Philanthropic giving can be a ticket into the top tier of New York City society, and Ms. Falcone has turned up lately on newyorksocialdiary.com and other Web sites.

“People are known philanthropically by the company they keep,” said Reynold Levy, the president of Lincoln Center and author of “Yours for the Asking: An Indispensable Guide to Fund-Raising and Management,” published last year. Being asked to join cultural boards is “as much a recognition of the status you’ve enjoyed as it is acquiring it,” Mr. Levy said.

But Ms. Falcone says her interest is largely about giving back, and her husband is more adamant: “She does things because she believes in them, and for no other reason,” he said.

Before the big announcement at the High Line dinner, the Falcones had already given $1 million toward the project’s 14th Street staircase and $200,000 a year for the last two years at Friends of the High Line’s annual summer benefit. Ms. Falcone has also raised a substantial amount of money from others for the project. “She is certainly the top individual fund-raiser at our benefits,” Mr. David said.

Mr. David said he was completely surprised by the Falcones’ $10 million match at the dinner, but didn’t mind the interruption. Some in the crowd, though, worried that Ms. Falcone’s announcement upstaged Ms. von Furstenberg and Mr. Diller. But Ms. von Furstenberg said: “The more the merrier. I was happy to share the light with her.”

Ms. Falcone said she had decided to announce her gift so spontaneously in part because she felt compelled to help Mr. David — and his High Line co-founder, Robert Hammond — enjoy having come this far, without worrying about how they were going to go the rest of the way. “They needed to have their moment, they needed to be free of all their problems,” she said.

“I speak from my heart,” she added later. “I know that sometimes can get me in trouble. But that’s the only way I know how to be.”

An earlier version of this article gave an incorrect age for Philip A. Falcone. He is 46, not 45.

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page C1 of the New York edition with the headline: Philanthropist With a Sense of Timing Raises Her Profile. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe